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Well, I have not really posted anything since being back in America, other than my husband’s birthday cake. It is time to get back to it, and work on the healthy cooking I was enjoying so much in Korea!

Jeremy is on Phase 2 of the Omnitrition Drops right now. This is the HCG diet that I was on in January. He is doing amazing and has lost 20 lbs in 10 days, and is still loosing! I will be starting again as soon as we have the money to buy another bottle of drops for me. I have been cooking the food for two weeks now, and struggling to be creative. I have done meatloaf, burgers, chicken 5 ways from Sunday.

Since I am not on the diet, I am struggling to stick to the meals, as I am craving bread, pasta and potatoes. I have been making some flat bread and tortillas for my tacos, but seem to grab chips or soda every once in a while.

For several days I have been craving spaghetti. I realize that is something I miss from Korea, as I won’t buy store bought tomato sauce anymore. I used to make it often for different pastas such as spaghetti or lasagna. This week I bought some tomatoes and the second I got htem out of the bag to put them in my fridge, I realized that they were either bruised from the bag, or just over ripe when I chose them. I knew they needed to go into my simple yet beloved sauce! I like to make this with fire roasted bell peppers, but since they are not allowed on phase 2 of the eating plan, I left them out for more tomatoes.

First, I put an x shaped slit in the bottom of five tomatoes.

I boiled them for up to one minute until the slit loosened and started peeling. Then I put them in a bowl of ice cold water to cool off and quit cooking. I then peeled the tomatoes (the skin comes right off), and cut the tomatoes into slices. I put them in a crock pot on high. I then diced up the onion into bigger chunks, and added them to the pot. I diced up the garlic and threw it in. I put the lid on and let this cook for 4 hours. When it started cooking down, and getting a little thicker, I added 1 small can of hunts tomato paste. After it cooked for another half hour, I scooped 2 cups into my food processor. I added the spinach in, and blended it together. I added this mixture back into the pot, and added the spices and seasonings to taste. I put this back into the crock pot to get it back up to temperature, and added 24 meatballs. I let this cook for a half hour.

Meatballs

I began by blending up 2 wasa crackers, 2 cloves of garlic, and 1/4 of an onion in the food processor. Then to blend, I added 1 lb of meat, and seasoning, and pureed for another 30 seconds.

Next I weighed out about 40 meat balls from this mix, each 1/2 an oz in weight. I cooked them in a pan with about 1/4 inch of water, stirring when needed to cook all the way through. When I took them out of the pan, they went into a bowl that was lined with paper towels to collect any remaining grease that was on the surface. When the sauce was ready, I put 24 into the sauce to cook for another half an hour (and lend flavor to the sauce), and the rest in the freezer for another day.

Noodles

Now for the easiest part! (Well sort of).

The hard part of this was locating the one ingredient…Daikon Radish. I had to go to a gourmet grocery store and pay 1.89/lb for the radish, which was over 2 lbs.

Today I peeled the radish, and then pulled out my mandolin. I have a $10 one from Walmart, but it had the perfect attachment for spaghetti noodles. I used it to slice over half of the radish into thin ribbons.

Next I boiled water. The directions I was given said to gently boil for 5-7 minutes. I set my timer for five minutes, but after three minutes, the texture resembled noodles and I tasted them. The texture was good for noodles as well. So after three minutes I drained the radish from it’s water and assembled my plate.

To get a proper HCG phase 2 plate, I put 2 oz. of noodles, and 2 oz. of sauce. Then I added 8 meatballs on top.

This is my all time favorite HCG recipe at the moment! I have not had one I like more, which is mostly because I LOVE Pasta, and sincerely miss it!

Winter is in the air, and the first thing that comes to my mind is soup. I love soup! It could be 100 degrees outside, and what I would want to eat is soup. Recently found pressed barley at my local grocery store. (Well in all honesty I had bought it before, but I actually thought it was oatmeal!) My husband came grocery shopping with me this past weekend, and as we stopped by the deli counter so I could get some ground beef, he saw some stew meat that he commented sounded good. He was thinking I could fry it up and throw it in sandwiches or stir fry or something, not realizing that stew meat is usually rather tough, which is why it is for stews…they cook a long time. Anyway, we got the meat, and I got the barley, and I new that this week I would be making beef barley stew.

I started out by sauteing the beef with maybe a tablespoon of olive oil, and throwing some chopped up onion in the pan with it. I cooked the meat and onions until the meat was just about done, and a little brown.

While that was cooking, I chopped up two carrots, opened and drained a small can of corn, and got out some frozen garlic. I threw about a tablespoon of garlic in with the meat, and another one in the crock pot with the vegetables.

When the meat was done, I poured the entire pan, drippings and all into the crock pot with the vegetables and mixed it all up a bit. I added 5 cups of water, a tablespoon of dried thyme, and some salt and pepper to the pot as well. I also used a little chicken bouillon for flavor, as I don’t have any beef. I then gave the entire pot a good stir.

I put a lid on the pot, turned it on low, and

I set aside 1 1/2 cups of barley, for my husband to add after he got home from work, after it had been cooking for over three hours.

When I came home I checked the soup, and the barley had expanded to the point there was almost no water in it the pot, and it was almost overflowing. (Note to self * Your crock pot cannot handle 1.5 cups of barley for a soup…try less next time!)

I didn’t take a photo as I was more concerned with adding some liquid to the pot than taking pictures….I added another cup to the pot, and this made the texture very stewy, and not so much thick clumpy gooey oatmealy if you know what I mean.

This photo was actually taken after two bowls of soup had been dispensed…the barley BLEW UP in the pot, and it was amazing the lid did not overflow!

Since the soup was pretty much done, I did’t have to do anything but add water once I got home. However, a good winter soup does not seem right without some bread to go with it. I made some quick rise bread sticks with rosemary sprinkled over the top of the dough, and garlic butter painted over the top.

I will be honest, the soup was pretty bland. Both my husband and I added some salt to our bowls, as well as a sprinkle or 4 of tobasco sauce. Then, this tasted great!

I found the recipe for the bread sticks on food.com. Here is the recipe that I used and is in my photographs.

1
Make dough using your favorite method- bread machine, mixer or by hand.
2
Roll out into a 10×12 inch rectangle.
3
Cut into strips about 3/4 inch wide.
4
Give each strip a twist and place on a greased cookie sheet.
5
Let rise for at least 20 minutes or more if you have time.
6
Bake at 375 for 10-15 minutes. (Mine took 8-10 minutes)
7
Brush with butter and sprinkle with garlic salt and parmesan cheese. (I melted butter and garlic and brushed on the garlic butter)

The soup serves about 10 helpings, and is 5 weight watchers points a bowl. The bread sticks with the garlic butter are 3 points each. All in all, a healthy meal, that you can fill up on!